Unsaid
by Mellaithwen
Summary: Fighting fuels nothing but regret and he never got the chance to apologise to his brother.


**Unsaid.**

**By Mellaithwen**

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**Rating: T**

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**Genre: Angst/Tragedy (this should give you a clue as to what kind of story it is…)**

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**Disclaimer: I don't own it, sorry, well, not that you would mind or anything...**

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**Summary: Fighting fuels nothing but regret and he never got the chance to apologise to his brother.**

**-Edited to remove song lyrics by The Fray, and to correct Dean's birthdate**

* * *

There are many pointless things in life, and one of them, one of the most famous and repetitively common things, is fighting. In any shape or form, conflict of any kind, rarely leaves a winner and loser. No one can win from War, just as no one can win from fighting. One, may come out less bruised than the other, but both have had a knock at their pride, and both know, that it's _that_ that took the fatal beating.

You can't knock sense into something; you can only knock it out, and leave the something, the person, hating you even more. Sometimes it's not a fight of fists, and sometimes, it's not even one of words. But a fight of silence can drag on for months, because it's likely that no one would notice, other than the strange quiet-ness that had overcome their counterpart. Nothing more and they will know nothing more, unless they are told. But they never are. And thus, things are left, unsaid.

You don't need words, or bunched up hands or clenched fists, and you don't need white knuckles and red palms to show you hate someone, and then there are those times when no one is to blame but the single man, or woman, boy or girl, who is over-reacting. Or blaming someone.

Brothers, like sisters, or a mixed variation of siblings, fight. And like most fights, they spawn from childish unimportant issues, that are forgotten even when the fight is not. Children will always fight, just as the Sun will always rise. Sometimes the clouds would hide it, and sometimes the Children would find mutual ground upon which to stand and take note of the blessings of their fellow sibling.

And sometimes the rays were so bright that they blinded the Children from seeing all that they were given. That's when the Children need guidance because they cannot see what is right in front of their eyes, until it is taken away, and they are left in the light that suddenly, now alone, seems so very, very dark.

* * *

Children, mostly following in the footsteps of their parents, can be stubborn. And just like a deadly game of chicken, neither Child will relent until they've crashed into a giant heap of a wrecked bond. In time it will mend, but the doubts will remain; were things just as they had once been? Would they ever be the same?

Sometimes, the fights need to be fought. Sometimes, the older brother just has to let his younger brother know whose boss, and sometimes, even if that means his little brother would cry, the older, the eldest, had to let the other know who was boss.

At any cost.

Because Children, so full of naïve innocence, can't always see what's best for everyone, and sometimes, even they regret all that's been said and done.

Children, like adults, don't always think before they act, and when all is done, and they look back, they, like Children, see all that they have lost when it's too late. You cannot know what you have until it's taken from you, unless to take stock, unless it's pointed out to you through tragedy, or pain. Because that's all it takes for someone to listen, to truly listen, and it's up to them whether or not they answer.

* * *

The car door of the Impala slammed open, and a grumbling Sam left, with his brother hot on his heels. Both ignored the faint raindrops spreading irony across the land, and both continued on their mission. Sam; to get to his destination, and Dean; to follow his brother.

Children, young adults, and fully grown men and women are all the same as much as they would all dispute the above statement, they cannot deny it when the evidence is stacked up against them, nor can they understand or comprehend why this is.

Maybe it's the human tradition of being completely against change. It confuses infants, and it confuses adults. Even when change is for the better, it is never well received, because change means just that, changing. Re-forming everything you know to fit an unfamiliar quota.

Sometimes people fight against change and sometimes that's viewed as childish. Fighting fuels nothing more than regret, and Sam regretted the fight he and his brother had had. Over there father once more. The father who was always missing, and a part of Sam knew he always would be. The fight, had been their shortest yet, with swearing taking up most of the breathing space, and both of them deciding against voicing their problems, bottling them up and continuing on with the hunt. _The_ hunt that was probably, the most important one to date. Because both of them had a score to settle, maybe Sam more so than Dean.

Sam had always been the first to want to apologise, to want to give in, and be rid of the silent treatment, but they hadn't even been given the chance. Not this time.

Sometimes that feeling inside, is called nothing more than anger, and sometimes it's called defiance, but sometimes, if not most times, and eventually, all times, it's called denial.

* * *

"You can't stay angry at me forever, Sammy," His smooth talking voice which he no doubt uses quite heavily on the ladies floats over to where he walks, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched, his eyes so dark of late hidden beneath his over-grown hair. "At some point you're gonna cave, I know it."

But Sam wouldn't, and clearly, Dean underestimated just how much little Sammy followed his brother and father's footsteps when it came to the good ol' Winchester stubborn streak that seemed to be embedded within his blood stream, unable to escape it, but for once, not wanting to. He had vowed silence, and he would keep it that way, he would not break his word, his promise to himself. He wouldn't cave, not for anything.

* * *

"You are so lame dude, I mean, since when has hanging out at graveyards 24/7 been your thing?" He was following his little brother, something he seldom did, but now, did so willingly. Following silently after each trudging step Sam took, his boots sinking into the mud while Dean's managed to stay clean. Something he grinned at happily.

_Shut up, Dean._

"Unless we're salting something, then burning it." He added as more of an afterthought referring to each and every other time they visited creepy graveyards. "Are we?" He asked, sounding a little too excited at the prospect of watching Sam do some manual labour. After all, Dean had dug up the Preacher, it was only fair that Sam did the work now. The younger brother notes that only Dean _would_ get excited to get to send the latest spirit back to wherever it came from. That was, as long as Sam did the digging, and started to talk to him anytime soon.

"Dude?" God, he was getting persistent, it always was a gift of his, having the ability ton continue no matter what. No injury would hold him back from a hunt, no illness, no disease and certainly not fear, and no knowledge that you were becoming annoying would stop him from getting what he wanted, and at that moment all Dean wanted was for his brother to speak to him again.

"Dude!"

_Shut up, shut up, shut up! Just leave me alone, god, I never bugged you this much as a kid, ever!_

"Oh come on, you can't ignore me for ever!"

_Of course I can._

And the silence reigned for a moment longer.

"Stubborn bitch, you have to answer me sometime."

_Do I? It's your fault you asshole, I'll ignore you if I want to!_

"Sammy?" His voice is quieter, as though concerned. Concerned that maybe Sam will hold out, and maybe Dean will never get his reply, or the chance to find out what he had done to warrant such a cruel streak of being completely ignored.

_I__t's all your fault and I hate you. You didn't fight._

Sam fell to his knees, clutching the grass growing atop the soil beneath him, feeling so detached and filled with a numbing pain, a contradiction in it self, that only truly made sense when you felt it. Feeling so weak that you doubt you'll ever stand up straight and face the world, and hurting so much that you ache everywhere, that your head pounds, and your heart seems to spread ice cold blood all around your body.

"Why are you so angry at me, Sammy?"

_It's Sam._

"Come on, tell me."

_You didn't fight hard enough, you didn't fight for yourself._

Even on the hot-summer days, Sam is cold, and he lets his nails dig into the small crevices of the name as he clutched the stone as tightly as he could. Reading them over and over again and the voice is quiet, leaving him his space.

_Dean Winchester  
__  
_

_Beloved Brother.  
__Loyal Son._

_January 24,_ _1979 - November 2nd, 2007 _

Sam knelt, remembering how long he had debated over what would be preferred. He could imagine his brother's complaints had his last remaining earthly possession been so bland and un-original, but Sam couldn't bring himself to come up with anything amusing to put beneath his brother's name, etched into stone and given immortality. Beloved Brother was a must, because it was so true, and Sam had wondered how much it might hurt his father had he stared at the tombstone and seen not a mention of a father in sight.

There _was_ no father in sight. There hadn't been for well over a year, and not a single phone call since that day, so long ago in April. Not a word, not even when Dean had been giving a few weeks to live. No missed call, no text message of co-ordinates. Nothing but a hopeless silence that seemed to take away Dean's purpose in life, and make him nothing more than a shadow in his final days.

He wished Dean had given him instructions. Anything to let him know what his brother wanted, but the topic had never arisen, not even on the long drive away from St Lois, after Dean's own quip about missing his own funeral. He wondered what that gravestone said; he had never bothered to think about it before now. It didn't matter, his brother wasn't buried there. His brother was buried beneath him, six feet under.

They had never talked about their issues, about that single fight where both had over stepped the boundaries love and bordering on worst enemies. Neither had spoken up, and taken the plunge into a definite chick-flick moment, and now it was Sam that would suffer the What If's remaining on this world, even when his brother did not.

He stayed quiet save for his own sobs, and faintly, as though he could have imagined it, he felt a small pressure on his shoulder, akin to that of comfort given. A hand clutching for a second and fading away like the breeze billowing around them.

"Goodnight, Sammy." The voice, his brother's voice, said simply, so quietly, so resigned, and so perfectly not-Dean, that Sam forgets his vow to never reply, and more out of habit than anything else, says;

"Goodnight Dean."

"Ha! I knew it, you caved, dude! I rock, and you suck!" He cried, pleased. "I told you I'd get you to talk to me!" A triumphant cry, and no doubt a hint of glee across his face, and Sam whirled around to see the grin he could imagine spreading across his brother's face.

He had to turn; though he never did every other time he came here. For fear of being disappointed, but this was different. Dean never spoke after his farewell, but then again, neither did Sam and it never occurred to the younger Winchester to apologise then. He had to do it to his brother's face, and he had to mean it with every fibre of his being, he had to make Dean _see_ that he was sorry.

He whirled around as fast as can be, wanting nothing more than to see him once more, just once. He would give anything to see his brother once more away from the nightmares that plagued his thoughts.

He whirled around, and saw nothing more than the fields surrounding him and the trees in the distance. He had whirled around, hope crushing him inside, anticipation clawing at his heart, and the numbing pain ever present, ever true. He had whirled around, and seen nothing, absolutely nothing, because nothing was there, and it never had been there.

Not really.

But it wouldn't stop him pretending the next time he came, and maybe then, maybe that time, or the next, or the next time after that, when hehe would turn, whether he had spoken or not,he might just catch a glimpse of all that he wanted to see. Or maybe next time, and the time after that,like this time, he'll be left disappointed as he continues to cry silently, all alone.

The sunset told him how late it was, so did the twilight, and eventually the pitch black darkness that surrounded him as he kept his ground and barely moved. He shuddered in the cold, and looked around him, at the stones that surrounded he and his brother. He crawled for a moment before standing on shaky feet, his knees cracking as he did so. He grasped the stone for a fleeting moment of serene silence as he bid his brother another farewell, before walking away, back to the Impala, and the life of a lonely hunter.

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